Oakleaf Bearers
'Oakleaf Bearers '''is the fourth book in the Ranger's Apprentice series by John Flanagan. This book was a finalist for the 2006 Aurealis Award - Children's Novel. It is also know as ''The Battle for Skandia Plot The book continues where the previous book left off. In ''The Icebound Land'', Evanlyn and Will had been captured and sold as slaves in Skandia. Meanwhile, Halt and Horace traveled across Gallica, defeating false knights, and ridding Gallica of the warlord Deparnieux.They are now ready to cross the border into Skandia and save Will. Meanwhile, Will has overcome his addiction to warmweed and finally regains his senses. The Battle For Skandia starts with Evanlyn, revealed to be Princess Cassandra, is out checking traps for food when she is taken by the Temujai. Halt and Horace are about to cross the Skandian border, with Horace possing as a Gallican ambassador to negotiate a hire of some Wolfships using a forged document made by Halt. When they get to the fort they find a dozen Skandians lying dead, shot by archers. Halt manages to recognize an arrow, shot by the Temujai and becomes instantly worried. Two decades ago, the Temujai had nearly conquered the world, but with politics and a dish of bad clams, the invasion was stopped. Halt then tracks the archers who are on horseback. Meanwhile, Will was tracking Evanlyn and the horseman who took her, he comes across her as a captive of a Temujai scouting party, though Will doesn't realize they are scouts at that stage. One of the Temujai is about to kill her but Will shoots him in the arm with a small hunting bow, distracting him. He is about to be shot by one of the warriors when Halt and Horace appear on the scene, after managing to track the Temujai down, and come to Will and Evanlyn's aid. Halt uses his Longbow to shoot most of the Temuj whilst Horace defends Evanlyn and manages to take one of the soldiers captive. Halt and the group, after being reunited, are then captured by Erak, the former Skandian who had helped Evanlyn and Will to escape in book three. Erak had been trying to track down the people who shot the Skandians at the other gate, and hastily came to a conclusion that Halt was the one that did it. Halt gave a list of reasons, which convinced that the senior Jarl to listen to him. Halt, Evanlyn, Will, and Horace are now forced to stay in Skandia because the Temujai have blocked their only exit to their homeland. Halt came to a decision into trying to get Ragnak, the Oberjarl, to allow him to become their strategist as he had lived and fought with and against the Temujai before, thus knowing their battle plans and style of fighting. Halt and Erak also manage to find the main army of the Temujai, followed with a very narrow escape because of Erak's clumsiness in stealth. Will late comes up with an idea that enables him to build up a group of 100 archers to fight against the Temujai in the battle then he and Halt manage to convince the Oberjarl into getting the slaves reward for fighting to be their freedom, of which Ragnak had to very reluctanctly accept. Halt also uses guerilla tactics by leaving a group of Skandians to raid the army's food supplies, wagons, and release their horses to cause confusion among the army and also to delay them. Later on, after preparations had been made ready by Halt, Evanlyn follows Slagor, a shifty-looking wolfship captain and manages to overhear his plan to betray Skandia by bring 150 Temujai cavalry people to attack the back of Skandian army by transporting the Temujai across the sea on several wolfships. Later, Slagor discovers that she is the Princess of Araluen and daughter to King Duncan, who Ragnak had a Vallasvow made against, vowing to kill any member of his family. Ragnak the Objarl and Erak gets into a small fight due to the fact that Ragnak had made a vow to kill her while Erak had made a promise to protect her, not knowing that she was the Princess. Halt then asks if there was a time limit, of which Ragnak slowly understands that he could postpone it. However, Halt then asks what Slagor's ships were doing at an island, of which leads on to explaining the Oberjarl that Slagor had been planning to betray him. After a long argument, it was decided (with Will's help) that 3 ships would go to the place where the supposedly Temujai would be waiting. Later on, they arrive and unsurprisingly, the find the Temujai there and confirms it with the leader, of which he says "Where is Slagor" in his second sentence. The men of the Skandians were disappointed as treachery was a big dishonor and conduct of the Skandian law. They do, however, manage to trick the Temujai into getting them off at an island and leave them there, as Will had suggested earlier in the story. Further on in the story, the Temujai begins their first attack and, as Halt had said, made a fake retreat of which the Skandians purposelly followed their "ambush". Halt, however, had placed a group of Skandians to ambush the Temujai. This made them driven back and the General of the army, along with the Colonel, were very, very surprised because the Skandians were not behaving anything at all from what they've heard. The next attack was followed by Will's archers, of which they manage to take out 5/6 of the Ulan. They managed to stay concealed during this attack but the colonel managed to get this vital information to his General before dying. During the third attack, the General manages to pinpoint their location and sends in a group of the best cavalry they had to take the archers out. Will's men, being distracted by the main attack, were ambushed and the enemy managed to take around 25-50 people out. Later on, Will and Horace fight side by side while Ragnak and his bodyguards go into a beserk stage of fighting, the dream of any Skandian. Will saves Evanlyn's life at the last second and the General finally decides to retreat due to the fact that it was too costly to go on to invade the quad's homeland (Temujai had no navy, so they wanted to defeat the Skandians to gain access to defeating the other countries. The Temujai have never been defeated.) After the battle, Ragnak was cremated honorbably; he died as a berserker with over 2 dozen wounds in his body. Erak surprisngly finds out that he is Oberjarl now. Halt and Erak made a treaty with Araluen, of which the Princess helps seal it. Erak takes the group back to their home. After a long happy union, Will and Evanlyn then find out that Halt has been banished; Erak saves the awkward moment by trying to include it in their treaty to pardon him, of which King Duncan agrees. In the end, Halt was rewarded with his reunion back with the Rangers, Horace with his knighthood and position as the Royal Guards, and Will was offered to become one of the Royal Cavalry, a high position of the King's army that trains archers and that only nobles could probably have; this would give him fame and reputation, but Will, in his heart, turns the offer down. Evanlyn, near the end as well, is sad because her friendship with Will is breaking up. Trivia *This book is also called The Battle for Skandia Category:Series Category:Books Category:Articles needing Improvement